Salushen's Seven are dead and gone. But Prophecy, it carries on...

A blog for your campaign

While the wiki is great for organizing your campaign world, it’s not the best way to chronicle your adventures. For that purpose, you need a blog!

The Adventure Log will allow you to chronologically order the happenings of your campaign. It serves as the record of what has passed. After each gaming session, come to the Adventure Log and write up what happened. In time, it will grow into a great story!

Best of all, each Adventure Log post is also a wiki page! You can link back and forth with your wiki, characters, and so forth as you wish.

One final tip: Before you jump in and try to write up the entire history for your campaign, take a deep breath. Rather than spending days writing and getting exhausted, I would suggest writing a quick “Story So Far” with only a summary. Then, get back to gaming! Grow your Adventure Log over time, rather than all at once.

They’ve just entered the floating city of Iquara, as it floats upon the waters of Lake Aquiraan. Iquara exists due to a powerful artifact known as the Seal of Orichalcum. It takes anything that can float and sticks it in place, always in relation to itself. The buildings and ships have slowly built up around it to form the second largest city of the Aquiri nation, although most of the ships that have formed the city are now in a mess.

After the partial destruction of their home city, the 5 adventurers have entered the city to look for a possible lead on who was behind the terrible attack. They’ve met with the Rockhold diplomats who have assigned to them a cover: as the winners of the Westgate Arena season they are here to provide a boost to moral for the many Rockholdians living in Iquara. Unofficially, and without the endorsement of the emissaries, they are also here to find 3 families who had run away from Rockhold just days before the attack.

Their first lead was successful and they found Engar Haz, an information dealer, who had heard about the families. He had directed them to hide in a district known as The Weighters, so-called because the ships had taken on a lot of water before they were fixed in place by the Orichalcum. He said that The Weighters was the perfect place to hide because of the drug production kept the guards away, the guards in question having a racial low tolerance to drugs and poisons in general. He said that the families had the means to avoid trouble. He also mentioned that the five children had looked… odd. Distant, perhaps, and not at all like he thought children should be.

Leaving Engar, the cleric detected the presence of an immortal creature and, throwing caution to the wind, unleashed a spell that specifically targeted immortals, demons, and the undead. The spell struck true and the creature (looking for all the world like a human but with red irises) screamed in pain and vanished. 3 half orcs rushed forward to attack the dwarf who assaulted their master but the battle was stopped by the fierce commands of Glarn and Exxar. The half-orcs showed the party their medallions marking them as priests of the Earth, and demanded recompense for the attack. However, they ceased their demands when they realised that Dolgan had uncovered their master’s secret, and forgot the circumstances as long as Dolgan did too.

That night, half of the party (Tiddy, Dolgan, and Glarn) made their way to the gambling establishment The Lady Midday. Alison, the owner, had invited them personally and was pleased to see them. She didn’t take up much of their time but asked them to mingle with the guests, most of whom were Selustrian citizens that night. Dolgan spent most of the time gambling the free 100g Alison had sent them, and Tiddy wandered around looking for… a presence. See, earlier in the day that had seen Alsion walking with a hand outstretched almost as though she were walking with an invisible person. People had walked around an empty space as though someone were there without them realising. Tonight, she attempted to catch sight of the phenomenon again AND DID! A bar stool was empty, and people wandered right past it as though it was occupied. When she walked towards it she felt some mental presence trying to convince her that the space didn’t exist but she fought past it. As the presence began to move, she followed it.

Glarn posed with his axe around this time, an axe composed of water with a tracery of silver around it. Through the poses he could see through the axe and could see the invisible Angel that Tiddy was following. Showing the Angel to Dolgan, Dolgan could ascertain that it was a Good creature. Moreover, Dolgan was confused by the half-elf in the corner with a spiked chain that shone more brilliantly than the sun… and the 12 beings composed of pure shadow slaved to the chain. Interestingly, the spiked chain shined with the same glory as Dolgan’s holy symbol cord… a cord that was known to belong to Raal, the cleric of Fire of the Salushen’s Seven. Eventually Tiddy and Glarn both found that one of the four stairwells leading up was never ever used, but had a glowing symbol only seen through the axe at the top. They headed towards it…

Meanwhile, Riscardo and Exxar made their way to the Flying Island at the behest of the red-irised man. The Flying Island was a gift to Iquara 400-odd years ago from the earth-dominant Genasi. At the centre of the island was a keep, in which the immortal lived. Over dinner at an enchanted table Ricardo entertained the man with a great deal of knowledge of who they were, why they were in the city, and what their future plans were. Eventually the puzzling meeting was concluded and they started to make their way to the casino.

At the same time Tiddy, Dolgan, and Glarn reached the top of the stairs with an alarmed Alison in pursuit. There was a flash of light and suddenly they could see the occupants of a second floor. Humans, with alabaster skin and stranger runes made of light floating uniformly around the tops of their heads. Illumians!! Creatures composed of pure knowledge, gone from Salushen since the age of Legends!

But what were they doing here?

“Sit down, and allow me to explain.” said Alison, her own runes flaring brightly.

Iquara

The adventurers, with Ricardo and Exxar having caught up, sat with a group of people with sigils orbiting the tops of their heads. They were able to see this phenomenon when no one else could, due to their going up the fourth set of stairs.
The group consisted of Alison (half eladrin / half human), a dwarf, 2 elf twins, an elf ranger of some sort, and 2 eladrins. Alison explained that they were a secret society with the goal of collecting the lost knowledge of the world after the disappearance of the last group of Illumians who supposedly fled in the Gith Invasion.
Alison then revealed the secret of the Illumians: that they were not a different race of people. A powerful ritual enabled ordinary men and women to bond briefly with the Kami of Knowledge, and conferred upon them great powers. Each of them was immortal as long as they worked to uncover knowledge and secrets. The original Illumians died when the Kami retreated from the Prime Material preceding the Gith Invasion, thus cutting off their power. In a single night the race of Illumians was gone and now, some 2500 years later, the new Illumians were just beginning to pick up the pieces.
They were asked questions by the adventurers. Glarn’s questions revolved around his suspicion that any secret society was inevitably up to no good (as all his experience so far told him), and asked them their motives and what they would do if they found the Illumian’s of the past were devoted to evil. The current Illumian’s tried their best to convince him that their intentions were noble, but that they didn’t become public due to their reasoning that the common people would hate what they didn’t understand. Furthermore, governments would probably hunt them down and interrogate them for the unique knowledge that they had gathered. In the end, however, Glarn probably still remains unconvinced of their supposed good intentions.
Ricardo asked questions pertaining to the Mathews Foundation, a society that was public in appearance but secret in their work. Each Foundation building had a symbol, which was decoded by the Illumians to the party. They now know that each building works in research of one of four disciplines: Life, Magic, Outside (Extrapalanar), or War. Ricardo also asked what the Illumians thought of the Foundation and if they were friends. Alison’s eyes narrowed and she emphatically stated that they were not friends, never would be, and that she did not trust their practices at all.
Exxar and Tiddy had nothing to add, but Dolgan posed an interesting question about his necklace (known to be a relic once worn by one of the Salushen’s Seven, the fire priest Raal). He thought that it had the potential to be greater than it was but couldn’t figure out how for it to be so. The dwarf (they never did get his name) replied that, as a holy relic, it was returned to the mortal world only after he ascended to Divinity. Therefore it and all his equipment became a living part of Raal. The necklace is a sentient piece of Holy Raal, and Raal was fire-dominant whereas Dolgan is water-dominant. The dwarf suggested finding a way to convince the necklace to stop being diametrically opposed.
Alison then went on to show them that they knew the party was heading for the Weighters. Revealing an ancient book that could sense and describe rituals that occurred near it, she said that last night there had been a very powerful ritual cast within the district. 10 people had taken part, and the ritual was demonic in fashion. She advised caution.
Finally, Alison asked the party to keep the Illumians’ secret. They were only told in the first place because of what they had seen could never be unseen or forgotten. And they were afraid of retribution by the Iquarans. In return, they would become a fount of knowledge on any subject that they had familiarity about, and would always be available for the adventurers.
That night… Dolgan meditated with the necklace in his hands in order to determine how he and it could get along…
The adventurers woke up on top of a small island with an infinite ocean stretching away on all sides. In front of them stood Raal himself. Or rather, the imprint of Raal from the necklace. Raal raged at Dolgan, stating that he could never become water-dominant when he was fire, and refused to work with Dolgan. Dolgan stated only that he would prove to Raal that he was worthy. Raal retaliated by making the party defeat one of the most fire-dominant creatures in the world: an adult red dragon. For a few seconds they fought, and the dragon proved to be probably more powerful than the party could hope to match and live. But Dolgan did something that looked so crazy and stupid that every combatant stopped fighting in astonishment.
He jumped off the edge into the middle of the island, which was filled with boiling magma. Into it he fell, dying almost instantly.
Dolgan did this, in his mind, to sacrifice himself in order to end the battle and save his friends. The dragon landed and, while repeatedly looking over the edge in a complete loss, asked the rest of the party why he did that. Tiddy replied, voice breaking in sorrow, that Dolgan “did it to save us.” The dragon looked at them all and said “He died so that you may live. ...I want to see where this goes.”
...and they woke up in the common room, damaged from the dragon but alive. With Dolgan standing next to them. When Raal was in the Great Race, his party could only move on when one of them sacrificed themselves. Raal could not let any of the others do it, and chose himself to be sacrificed. That Dolgan did the same thing so willingly and with determination shocked the echo of Raal, and he changed Dolgan so that they might work together…
And change Dolgan he did. Because Dolgan had died in fire, thus was he reborn in fire. Dolgan was now fire-dominant, and the necklace that held his fire holy symbol was completely unlocked. Dolgan had successfully recovered the first of the Salushen Seven relics.

Next week: the party searches the Weighters for the hidden families of Rockhold…

The four used a ritual by which they could breathe underwater, and so were adept at sneaking into the Weighters. Inside, they subdued some guards and cultists (Children of the Archmage) and snuck into the deepest recesses of the largest ship in the Weighters. At times Glarn thought that he could hear noises of people when there wasn’t anyone there, and several times people could hear chanting going on in rooms in front of them but when they entered there were boxes and hammocks but no one in sight.
Eventually Glarn looked through his axe (infused with pure Elemental Water) and saw that in one room there were two realities. The one that they could see with several pirates drinking and gambling, and one that had a dwarven ritualist surrounded by the missing Rockhold citizens. Glarn walked right up to the phased dwarf and hit him with the only items that could… the axe. The dwarf lost concentration which caused the two phased realities to merge once more. People who merged back into another person’s space were thrown back violently, stunning them. The dwarf, however, merged with a non-living item. After the inevitable fight, the party was disgusted to find a table infused with the soul of the dwarf, forever writhing and moaning. ...and bleeding.
During the fight, one of the cultists was hurt by the PCs and fell to the ground, twisting and shaking, his screams turning into roars as his eyeballs melted and were replaced with glowing red power. One of the civilians recognised the threat and doused the man/thing with holy water, ending the transformation.
The thing was a human who had bonded his soul with a demon willingly with the intention of peace. This “Peacefiend” had considerable power as a human and could prevent almost anyone from taking harmful actions in their presence. Furthermore, they had the ability to sway others to their cause and could use supernatural powers of persuasion. The tradeoff however was that if they become bloodied or killed, the defenses keeping the demon from taking over were breached, allowing the demon to be fully summoned. It is a terrible ritual used by stupid people who believe that peace is worth any price. It is also used by evil people who wish to seed an entire city with potential demons and then harm even one… the resulting demon would then kill other Peacefiends, until the city was overrun.
Talking to the civilians for a while, it was discovered that the fives heads of the houses were missing. And so the five other adults and the five children (who all seemed unnaturally precocious for their ages) were taken back to the diplomatic headquarters in the red flag district.
Where they discovered that the heads of the houses had been discovered. Dead. No sign of physical trauma but their faces were expressions of horror and pain.
Whilst examining the children, Ricardo detected a magical emanation on the children, one that bespoke of a ritual being cast upon them at some point in the last 24 hours. When mentioning this to the lead diplomat (former adventurer rogue Lord Montierry), he also noted that there were five elderly Aquiri in the main healing center who had also been indentified to have a ritual aura upon them.
It was at this point that the adventurers started thinking… five Aquiri children who acted too mature for their ages. Five dead heads of houses. Five elderly Aquiri who had been acting in a state of absolute horror. All with a ritual aura. And the Illumians had stated that somewhere within the city a demonic ritual had been cast…
This is their idea (and they’re correct): The five leaders used a demonic ritual that swapped their minds into their children, the childrens’ minds into the minds of the elderly, and the elderly were killed. Thus the adults would have escaped the consequences of their supposed part on the attack on Rockhold.
However, as it stands the “children” cannot be dealt with by Rockhold law as their physical age makes it illegal for them to be tried under the legal system. The Aquiri have no such compunctions, but they do not allow for undue interrogation and all legal proceedings go through the official Aquiri state. Therefore, the Rockhold government would not gain the information they need to press ahead with their own inquiries. They could try and duplicate the ritual, but it’s a demonic ritual that requires five sacrifices. Or they could ask the Illumians to help, but their intervention would raise questions, and the Illumians are counting on them to keep their identities a secret. They could seek the help of the Mathews Foundation or the Titan Institute, but they don’t trust those organisations. Finally, they could just interrogate the children for the information, but then they’d be breaking 2nd degree laws in the city of Iquara.
Finally, they could just hand them over and not interfere. But they wouldn’t be adventurers if they did that.